Take it to PMs with him, hopefully he can clarify his perspective to you and help explain why the SCP has always worked so hard to ensure backwards compatibility.

I should butt in here and clarify: the SCP has always worked so hard to ensure backwards compatibility with the original FreeSpace 2 campaign, aka, the holy RETAIL. Not 3rd-party mods, in fact, the SCP has clarified that they cannot be expected to maintain backwards compatibility with said 3rd party campaigns, as it would impede the progress of the SCP significantly.

Take it to PMs with him, hopefully he can clarify his perspective to you and help explain why the SCP has always worked so hard to ensure backwards compatibility.

I should butt in here and clarify: the SCP has always worked so hard to ensure backwards compatibility with the original FreeSpace 2 campaign, aka, the holy RETAIL. Not 3rd-party mods, in fact, the SCP has clarified that they cannot be expected to maintain backwards compatibility with said 3rd party campaigns, as it would impede the progress of the SCP significantly.

Just to nitpick.

We do not guarantee backwards compatibility outside of retail, but we also try very hard to maintain it if at all possible; the continued existence of the $Loop SEXPs Then Arguments: option is proof enough of that. Only if the feature was introduced since the most recent stable build (i.e. any features only present in nightly builds) do we not have qualms about breaking backwards compatibility with it.

<MageKing17> "There's probably a reason the code is the way it is" is a very dangerous line of thought. <MageKing17> Because the "reason" often turns out to be "nobody noticed it was wrong".(the very next day)<MageKing17> this ****ing code did it to me again<MageKing17> "That doesn't really make sense to me, but I'll assume it was being done for a reason."<MageKing17> **** ME<MageKing17> THE REASON IS PEOPLE ARE STUPID<MageKing17> ESPECIALLY ME

<MageKing17> God damn, I do not understand how this is breaking.<MageKing17> Everything points to "this should work fine", and yet it's clearly not working.<MjnMixael> 2 hours later... "God damn, how did this ever work at all?!"(...)<MageKing17> so<MageKing17> more than two hours<MageKing17> but once again we have reached the inevitable conclusion<MageKing17> How did this code ever work in the first place!?

<@The_E> Welcome to OpenGL, where standards compliance is optional, and error reporting inconsistent

<MageKing17> It was all working perfectly until I actually tried it on an actual mission.

<IronWorks> I am useful for FSO stuff again. This is a red-letter day!* z64555 erases "Thursday" and rewrites it in red ink

<MageKing17> TIL the entire homing code is held up by shoestrings and duct tape, basically.

This was a long time ago Admiral. There would be quite sweeping changes on a regular basis which would nuke your whole mod. So TBP final was built to work with the executable it shipped with. Because we knew that wouldn't change. Things are much better these days. I don't want to disrespect anyone working on the game engine these days. It's an awesome piece of work and I'm very grateful for it

Take it to PMs with him, hopefully he can clarify his perspective to you and help explain why the SCP has always worked so hard to ensure backwards compatibility.

I should butt in here and clarify: the SCP has always worked so hard to ensure backwards compatibility with the original FreeSpace 2 campaign, aka, the holy RETAIL. Not 3rd-party mods, in fact, the SCP has clarified that they cannot be expected to maintain backwards compatibility with said 3rd party campaigns, as it would impede the progress of the SCP significantly.

Just to nitpick.

You are butting in here to introduce falsehoods. Please don't. The SCP goes to some pretty great lengths to preserve backwards compat with non-retail content.

Take it to PMs with him, hopefully he can clarify his perspective to you and help explain why the SCP has always worked so hard to ensure backwards compatibility.

I should butt in here and clarify: the SCP has always worked so hard to ensure backwards compatibility with the original FreeSpace 2 campaign, aka, the holy RETAIL. Not 3rd-party mods, in fact, the SCP has clarified that they cannot be expected to maintain backwards compatibility with said 3rd party campaigns, as it would impede the progress of the SCP significantly.

Just to nitpick.

You are butting in here to introduce falsehoods. Please don't. The SCP goes to some pretty great lengths to preserve backwards compat with non-retail content.

My apologies; upon further recollection, it was the MediaVPs that were only bound to preserve retail backwards compatibility.

However, I would point out that we have an entire team (The FreeSpace Campaign Restoration Project) dedicated to making old campaigns work again with new versions of the engine.

Not that any of this matters really. :shrug: I really was just nitpicking.

Why would anyone object in bringing TBP up to the standards that FSO is now? I mentioned that it would be nice to see a new full installer that has all the updated campaigns and patches after seeing the response I had when I brought this project up in the Babylon 5 Facebook room. I am sure whoever worked on this in the past will always get the credit for the fine work they did.

Would it not be great to see this project be the best it can be now? I hope this will happen with a spirit of cooperation from all parties.

Why would anyone object in bringing TBP up to the standards that FSO is now?

That's a really well worded question! Because FSO is now - finally - in a good place. I won't comment any further on where it was before. But now there are Swifty's awesome deferred lighting builds. They're well worth targeting a new release at. I've seen a couple of extremely stable builds and the aesthetic difference is staggering. Even without new geometry. I came here with the intention of seeing if anyone was still interested in this thing. Only to find moderator "The E" slagging off me and by extension my team behind our backs. All good will was instantly burned to ash. And that's the answer to the question you asked. People like "The E".

Well I am just a fan and was not around during all this history. I only got interest after I retired. For the sake of us fans how about everyone work together and bring TBP up to date. If I had my wish it would also support multiplayer co-op. That would be so cool.

I think he's very qualified to explain why TBP's technical issues needed patching, and why it's so good that happened.

There were no significant technical issues with TBP running on the build it was released with which it was intended to run on. Nothing needed patching. It's as simple as that. Making TBP automagically work with all newer versions of FSO was never a goal. There was no mistake. Targeting a specific build was logical and sensible. We did that and released a huge, stable, feature rich product.

Nobody asked "The E" to ride in on a white horse, take our stuff, and make it work with the latest FSO it was never intended to work with. While simultaneously whining about it being difficult. In all honesty I did not come here to say this. I've mentioned what I think of the newer FSO releases above. I would have liked to have been more generous in my praise at this point. Hopefully you understand what I'm hinting at. But I came here and found things said. War never changes. Sadly.

The good Christian should beware of mathematicians, and all those who make empty prophecies. The danger already exists that the mathematicians have made a covenant with the devil to darken the spirit and to confine man in the bonds of Hell.

There were no significant technical issues with TBP running on the build it was released with

TBP as released was a gorgeous, fun, innovative, and content-rich mod which had not been properly debugged. It was impossible to maintain and provide tech support for because it was so broken, even on the build it launched on.

Let me say that again. TBP could not be supported on 3.6.9. Start up a 3.6.9 debug build and it would scream and scream about issues with TBP. The game was not finished. Fortunately, the TBP team had done such a good job that it wasn't hard to finish.

A huge number of fans, team members, and coders came together to fix that and make sure TBP could go on beautifully and reach as many players as possible. In response, you tried to delete the entire project and prevent anyone from ever playing it again.

Fortunately, the HLP community was able to find a way to save all that hard work. Tons of people have worked on Zathras and new content for TBP! I don't know why you're signaling out The E: all he's said is the perfectly correct "it is a bad idea to delete your entire mod when the coders tell you it's impossible to maintain even on the build it was designed for."

You shouldn't be surprised that people regret your decision. You should be really grateful that so many awesome people have worked so hard to support a really awesome mod! TBP is still probably the biggest, best total conversion FSO has ever produced.

I really want to make this clear. TBP as designed for 3.6.9 was full of bugs and bad assets which would and did cause the game to misbehave or crash. That wasn't due to a lazy team or bad modelers or anything like that! It was because the game engine did not have good error reporting.

All that the SCP did was say 'boy, we should fix this stuff!' And that's what happened. They didn't invent new errors, or break backwards compatibility, or design new versions of the engine that ruined old mods. They only made the game say "oh god, this broken thing is broken!" And then we, this awesome community, the TBP team, everyone: fixed it.

TBP is in great shape and is some of the most fun I've ever had playing FSO.

Alright General. You carry on whining about how TBP didn't work with builds of FSO it wasn't supposed to run on. And how it was difficult it was to make it run on builds it wasn't supposed to run on. And exaggerating about how TBP would reformat your hard disk if you looked at it even though next to nobody complained about stability in millions of downloads. Be careful not to trip over the fluffly bunnies and rainbow mushrooms while you're hop skipping through SCP pointless abuse justification fantasy land. Remember kids. Modders are EVIL!

The game was broken on 3.6.9. The build you wanted to release on. It worked fine most of the time, but it could hit memory corruption and bad ****. And because of the reef of debug errors, it was impossible to tell users why their games weren't working.

Again. TBP was broken on the build it WAS SUPPOSED TO RUN ON.

I just do not understand how you can be upset. It makes no sense.

You said "I want to release TBP Final for 3.6.9." You did that. You succeeded! No one can take that away, 3.6.9 is going nowhere! Your job was done!

Why would you get angry and try to delete the entire mod because people wanted to keep working on the game? Nothing was going to stop TBP Final from being TBP Final! Nobody could stop 3.6.9 from running TBP!

No one did anything whatsoever to hurt you! Nothing was taken away from you! Nothing was threatened! 3.4b could run fine on 3.6.9 and always would, exactly the way you wanted!

You're angry that a modding community made a mod to make your game better. You're so furious that people loved your game and wanted to make it better that you call it 'abuse'.

<MageKing17> "There's probably a reason the code is the way it is" is a very dangerous line of thought. <MageKing17> Because the "reason" often turns out to be "nobody noticed it was wrong".(the very next day)<MageKing17> this ****ing code did it to me again<MageKing17> "That doesn't really make sense to me, but I'll assume it was being done for a reason."<MageKing17> **** ME<MageKing17> THE REASON IS PEOPLE ARE STUPID<MageKing17> ESPECIALLY ME

<MageKing17> God damn, I do not understand how this is breaking.<MageKing17> Everything points to "this should work fine", and yet it's clearly not working.<MjnMixael> 2 hours later... "God damn, how did this ever work at all?!"(...)<MageKing17> so<MageKing17> more than two hours<MageKing17> but once again we have reached the inevitable conclusion<MageKing17> How did this code ever work in the first place!?

<@The_E> Welcome to OpenGL, where standards compliance is optional, and error reporting inconsistent

<MageKing17> It was all working perfectly until I actually tried it on an actual mission.

<IronWorks> I am useful for FSO stuff again. This is a red-letter day!* z64555 erases "Thursday" and rewrites it in red ink

<MageKing17> TIL the entire homing code is held up by shoestrings and duct tape, basically.